No Safe House

Thirty-seven

Cynthia Archer did not sleep well.

She lay awake, wondering what it was her husband and daughter might be keeping from her. Why had it taken so long for Terry to go pick Grace up and come home? They hadn’t pulled into the driveway until after midnight, a couple of hours after he’d taken the call from Grace to come get her.

Something was wrong. She could sense it.

But she couldn’t call Terry and ask why they had been out so late. Not without admitting she’d been spying on them from behind a tree, like some ridiculous character in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. If Terry found out she’d been watching the house, he’d jump to the conclusion that she’d been doing this other nights. Maybe every night since she’d moved out of the house.

And he’d be right.

By the time Cynthia’s digital clock read 5:30, she didn’t see the point in lying in bed any longer. She got up, showered, did her makeup, put on the clothes she’d selected for herself the night before.

She put a slice of bread into the toaster, peeled a banana, made some coffee, turned on the radio. But she couldn’t have told anyone a thing she heard. Her mind was elsewhere.

Those buggers.

Thought they could pull something over on her, did they? She could understand why they’d do it. They were protecting her. They were doing what they could to keep her anxiety level down.

It was insulting. As if she couldn’t handle things. As if she was some kind of baby.

Well, Cynthia Archer was not a baby.

She was going to find out what was going on. She was not going to go directly to work this morning. She was going to stop by their house. After all, it was still hers, too, and she could drop by anytime she wanted. She didn’t need an invitation. She didn’t need a reason.

She was going to go up to the door and let herself in and damned if she was going to knock.

Hey, thought I’d join you for breakfast. Coffee on?

So at six-fifty she stepped out of her apartment and headed for the stairs. But there was a man there, about four steps down, blocking her path. She nearly screamed.

“Good morning, Cynthia.”

It was Barney. He had a screwdriver in his hand, and an open red metal toolbox was perched one step down from the top. The wooden hand railing, which was normally secured to the wall with metal brackets, was half off.

“You scared me half to death,” she said.

“Sorry about that. I decided to come over this morning, check in on Orland. I popped my head in — he’s fast asleep, but I’m going to hang around until he wakes up. Figured I’d get some work done in the meantime. I’ve been meaning to fix this railing for a while. It’s pretty loose, not safe. Let me get out of your way here.”

“Thank you. I hope everything’s okay with Orland.”

“It might be he was just having a bad day. I’ve known him a long time. Went to high school together. Where you off to so early? Wait — let me guess. You’re doing a restaurant inspection. See if somebody’s serving bugs with the home fries.”

“Just have a lot to do,” she said. She started to squeeze past him when there was the sound of a door opening in the first-floor hallway. Then, Orland shouting, “What’s all the racket?”

His face appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking up through smudged glasses, hair all over the place. He was dressed in nothing but a tattered blue bathrobe and socks. “Barney!” he said. “What the hell you doin’?”

“Fixing this railing, Orland. Maybe you’d like to give me a hand?”

“I look like I’m dressed for work?”

“So get dressed. How you feeling today?”

“I feel fine,” he said, then coughed. He looked quizzically at Barney and said, “Where’s Charlotte?”

Barney sighed tiredly. “Charlotte’s passed away, Orland. Years ago. You know that.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. How long were you two married?”

“You’re confused, Orland. Charlotte was never my wife.”

Orland scratched his head. “Oh, that’s right.” He chuckled. “What the hell was I thinking?”

Cynthia gave Barney a weak, sympathetic smile. “I have to go,” she whispered.

“Sure thing,” Barney said.

“Have a nice day, Orland,” Cynthia said as she scooted past the man and headed out the front door. Seconds later, she was in her car.

As she turned off Pumpkin Delight Road onto Hickory, she saw Terry’s Ford Escape backing out of the driveway. She hit the brakes and eased the car over to the curb and watched as he headed off in the other direction, toward Maplewood.

Where the hell was he going this early? It wasn’t as if he had a job to go to in July. She was pretty sure there was only one person in the car, which meant Grace was still at home.

Why would he head out so early? What kind of errand could he be running? A donut and coffee run? Was he fetching Grace an Egg McMuffin? That didn’t sound like Terry.

Could he be sick? Was he off to the drugstore for some medicine? Could it be Grace? Was she sick? The CVS pharmacy out on the Boston Post Road would be open this early, she thought. It was a twenty-four-hour location.

She might as well follow him and find out.

Cynthia gave her husband a good head start, then took her foot off the brake.

He wasn’t heading for the CVS. He was heading across town, ending up on Naugatuck. Parked across the street from some place that fixed busted appliances. But it wasn’t even open, and Terry had said nothing about a broken washer or dryer or—

He wasn’t going to the repair shop. He was going up a flight of stairs on the side of the building. To what looked like an apartment.

What the hell was he doing there?

Terry happened to glance in her direction, just for a second, and suddenly Cynthia felt vulnerable. What if he spotted her? She was pretty sure he hadn’t just now, but what if he did the next time he looked her way? It was one thing to be caught spying on them at home, but how would she explain following him all over Milford?

She turned the car around and started heading back. To the house. She’d play dumb. Let herself in, find Grace, ask her where her father was.

As she rounded the corner, she noticed there was a car parked on the street, just down from their place, that had not been there when she’d gone by minutes earlier. A man was crossing the street, right out front of their house.

Cynthia slowed, steered over to the side of the road.

The man walked up their driveway, approached the front door.

Rang the bell.

“Who the hell is that, this bloody early?” Cynthia said to herself. “Don’t answer it, Grace. Do not answer that door.”

She reached into her bag for her cell phone. She’d call Grace, tell her not to go to the door. But before she could place the call, she saw the man knocking. Hard enough that she could almost hear it through the windshield.

“Just go away,” Cynthia said. “Go now. Get.”

What she saw next — well, she almost couldn’t believe her eyes. The man reached into his pocket and took out... It was a key.

Before he inserted it, he looked over his shoulder to check whether anyone was watching him. He failed to spot Cynthia sitting in her car, so he turned back to the door, slid the key into the lock.

Cynthia hit the gas.

The car leapt forward, the tires squealing. She didn’t even wait until she reached the driveway before turning hard right. The car bounced up over the curb and charged right across the yard, the spinning tires digging up sod and dirt as Cynthia aimed the car for the front door, her hand pressing so hard on the horn it felt like it would go through the steering column.

The man whirled around, saw the car heading straight for him, and dived out of the way. Cynthia hit the brakes, the bumper coming to a stop about six feet from the door.

The man was running flat out now, heading for that blue car. Cynthia threw open her door and shouted, “Hey! Hey you!”

She debated running after him, but then she heard the familiar whoop of a house alarm. Cynthia spun around to see Grace, dressed in one of her oversized sleeping shirts, standing in the open doorway of the house.

Grace screamed, “Mom! Mom!”

Grace shot forward, arms outstretched. She fell into her mother’s arms, weeping, and Cynthia clutched her tight, holding her like she’d never ever let her go.